With the gift of art, a City of Champions can become a City of Culture

What We Do

Through generous donations from individuals and foundations, Start with Art has directly impacted the lives of almost 10,000 babies and their families in Pittsburgh. Since giving our first gift of art on January 1st, 2015, we have only made these prints available to newborn babies in Pittsburgh. Moving forward, we want to make our art even more accessible.

Buy a Print, Donate a Print

For every print that you purchase, a print will be donated to a newborn baby. It's as simple as that! All prints are signed and numbered by our artists and shipped directly to your door. Rest assured, you'll be happy to buy a new piece of affordable art by an accomplished artist and a family is going to be able to go home from the hospital with two gifts.

the 5 W's

Who: All of the artists that have been selected for Start with Art have received regional, national, and even international recognition for their work. Our artists have had exhibitions at museums including the Mattress Factory, Carnegie Museum of Art, Warhol Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. Awards include the MacArthur Fellowship, Pulitzer Prize, Silver Eye Center for Photography Keystone Fellowship, and Pittsburgh Artist and Emerging Artist of the Year. Two artists are even having their work sent to the Moon!

What: Each month, our artists sign and number almost 300 archival pigment prints. All prints are 8 1/2" x 11".

Where: For now, we have worked in Pittsburgh with UPMC Mercy, the Midwife Center, and St. Clair Hospital, but we can't wait to expand to new cities in 2018.

When: Every. Single. Day.

Why: Multiple studies from the Dana Foundation, National Foundation for Educational Research, and Harvard University show that exposure to the arts is not only better for our health, but helps children develop complex cognitive and academic skills.

With every purchase, we donate one print to a local hospital

Number of families receiving art based on current donations

2015 - 2018

Our first three years

Start with Art began with a $10,000 gift from Crusade for Art, an Atlanta-based non-profit whose mission was to grow audiences for photography. Since then, we have tirelessly fundraised and written grants to continue ensuring that Pittsburgh's babies begin life as the world's youngest art collectors. By gifting more than 3,300 prints each year, we are preparing to celebrate our 10,000th print and baby in January 2018. But that's only the beginning...

2019 - 2036

Our Future

As we expand into new hospitals, Start with Art will soon be giving the gift of art to almost 15,000 babies each year. The most exciting thing is that by the time these first babies are in college, there will actually be more art collectors than residents in Pittsburgh!